Melbourne Writers Festival

A life-sized Choose Your Own Adventure audio tale — with a high-tech twist.

For one month, we transformed Melbourne's famous laneways into a giant multi-dimensional audio story. Whenever you changed directions, the story did, too.

The story

As a copywriter, there's no brief more intimidating than the one for Melbourne Writers Festival. I wanted to create something never done before.

So I called in interactive storytelling expert Leena van Deventer to help plot a giant Choose Your Own Adventure tale. With festival speakers on our writing staff, we wove diverging narratives. Then we invited beloved local celebrity voices to narrate them.

The technology

We used sensitive new geo-location beacons to trigger audio files in an app based on your location. Every line of story was set where you were standing.

Download the app, plug in your headphones, and the story would begin. As you approached an intersection, your choice of direction controlled the story. The average story time was 15 minutes, and each narrative eventually delivered you back home to the festival ticket booth.

The cinema ad

Melbourne Writers Festival comes right after Melbourne Film Festival in the calendar - the perfect time of year for a super-targeted, super-affordable cinema buy we knew would reach our cultured audience.

The interactive YouTube ad

In the spirit of Twists & Turns, we let YouTubers choose their own ending. This game our cinema ad a whole new life online.